Georges Perec, W, or the Memory of Childhood
A conversation with Vincent Gélinas-Lemaire
Questions on W, or the Memory of Childhood
Let me start by saying I apologise for the late post. I was caught up in another assignment and completely lost track of time. About the novel, I found it to be a very interesting and even somewhat appealing read in small degrees. I am well aware that I use the word ‘interesting’ about almost […]
I found W or the Memory of Childhood to be a fairly fascinating and enjoyable read. I felt that the story was interesting to follow, however, I cannot say that I find it flowed very well. Something as a reader … Continue reading
I found the novel “W, or the Memory of Childhood” by Georges Perec to be an extremely interesting read for me. I found myself getting lost in the memories of his childhood and the descriptions and the way he had forgotten some of it and was sharing what he could remember was really descriptive and something that I found added a lot fo context to the novel. One thing that confused me was that the cities were being represented by Ws or Rs and just single letters in general. This is something that i found myself questioning throughout the novel based on the significance or meaning of the singular letters. I also was confused by what XX or X was being used to represent whether it was to represent the cities in France or streets, etc.
My question is why do you think just letters were used to represent places or cities throughout the text?
One thing that surprised me in this novel was when Otto Apfelstahl had sought out the narrator to help find the original Gaspard Winckler even though Otto Apfelstahl had known and was clear about the fact that the narrator had just used his name and had no other clues or hints leading back to the case of Gaspard Winckler being missing. This was something that was interesting to me because the level of work he had to do to have the conversation with the narrator and the effort he put in to track him down did not seem to match up with the abilities the narrator was known to have to help Otto Apfelstahl and his team come closer to finding the original Gaspard Winckler. Another thing that was a bit confusing for me was when the narrator had talked about the place referred to as W. W seemed to be an olympic village or city, which I found very interesting, though I found it difficult to adjust to the different storyline n the novel. Overall, this novel was very interesting to me and I think the mixture of the two stories together added a lot of beauty and realism to the text. I was able to see what was going on in the plot and also have a deeper understanding of the childhood and experiences that he had which definitely created a positive impact on the story. This also led me to understand the text a lot more and have a deeper understanding of the narrator and his life. This novel was very unique to other texts that I have read.
I found the novel “W, or the Memory of Childhood” by Georges Perec to be an extremely interesting read for me. I found myself getting lost in the memories of his childhood and the descriptions and the way he had forgotten some of it and was sharing what he could remember was really descriptive and something that I found added a lot fo context to the novel. One thing that confused me was that the cities were being represented by Ws or Rs and just single letters in general. This is something that i found myself questioning throughout the novel based on the significance or meaning of the singular letters. I also was confused by what XX or X was being used to represent whether it was to represent the cities in France or streets, etc.
My question is why do you think just letters were used to represent places or cities throughout the text?
One thing that surprised me in this novel was when Otto Apfelstahl had sought out the narrator to help find the original Gaspard Winckler even though Otto Apfelstahl had known and was clear about the fact that the narrator had just used his name and had no other clues or hints leading back to the case of Gaspard Winckler being missing. This was something that was interesting to me because the level of work he had to do to have the conversation with the narrator and the effort he put in to track him down did not seem to match up with the abilities the narrator was known to have to help Otto Apfelstahl and his team come closer to finding the original Gaspard Winckler. Another thing that was a bit confusing for me was when the narrator had talked about the place referred to as W. W seemed to be an olympic village or city, which I found very interesting, though I found it difficult to adjust to the different storyline n the novel. Overall, this novel was very interesting to me and I think the mixture of the two stories together added a lot of beauty and realism to the text. I was able to see what was going on in the plot and also have a deeper understanding of the childhood and experiences that he had which definitely created a positive impact on the story. This also led me to understand the text a lot more and have a deeper understanding of the narrator and his life. This novel was very unique to other texts that I have read.
I found this novel to be quite unusual and interesting. One never expects to find two parallel narratives in a novel where one is autobiographical and the other fictional. But that is implied in the title “W” and it seems that this is an autobiography for an author without one. The stories merge into one […]
